Battle Raiden/Enemies/Mini-Bosses

This subpage entry covers the Mini-Bosses present in Battle Raiden's non-boss stages.

If you wanted more information on the minor foes or the bosses, please return to the previous subpage and visit the corresponding sections.

According to Zenki's and Chiaki's ingame dialogue in the original, Japanese version of Battle Raiden, the mini-bosses are Hyouijuu, which explains why they leave behind a single Hyouinomi after their defeat.

Rock Turtle
The Rock Turtle is a tortoise-like enemy, with six legs and a dragon-like head. It is introduced at the beginning of Stage 1-2 and acts as Battle Raiden's first mini-boss.

The Rock Turtle starts standing at the beginning of the stage with its head hidden inside its shell, but as soon as Chibi Zenki has ventured through about one and a half screens, the Rock Turtle will wake up and chase him.

The mini-boss will be invulnerable, as its head is its only vulnerable part, which is till hidden as the Hyouijuu chases Zenki. Occasionally it will stop to stomp the ground, causng a large platform to fall down, which Zenki needs to use to avoid jumping into the spike floors.

Once Chibi Zenki reaches the dead end at the end of the stage, the monster will stop and Chiaki will exclaim "L-Look it's a Hyouijuu!" as the Rock Turtle's head and neck exit the shell. Chibi Zenki will say: "I'll crush you where you stand!", while the actual mini-boss battle starts mid-sentence.

Behaviour
The Rock Turtle itself doesn' move, but it's head and neck do. Also it can only be attacked by using the flying kick, which deals a moderate anmount of damage to it. Note that the Rock Turtle's only vulnerable part is its head. Hitting it anywere else will result in Chibi Zenki getting hurt.

When Zenki hits the Hyouijuu's head, it will retract the head and neck and be invincible for a few seconds. While it won't be able to attack at that time, Zenki will get hurt by the collision damage if he comes in contact with the head while its in that state.

Obviously, the battle isn't as simple as Zenki wailing on the monster's head. The Rock Turtle will continuously shoot laser disks at Zenki's location in an attempt to hit him. It is nearly impossible to avoid the disks as they are pretty fast and are often shoot by the mini-boss at random intervals (often when Zenki is in mid-air or just has landed and is unable to avoid them).

The only effective way to avoid the Rock Turlte's laser disks is to use the spin jump, which makes Zenki invincible for the duration of the spin jump itself.

The Rock Turtle also has a second attack, which has it jumping in place, shaking the whole stage section and causing some small rocks to fall down. Zenki has to avoid them and the disks, which the monster will keep shooting one it's done jumping.

In this case, the spin jump and backstep are Zenki's best friends to avoid the Rock Turtle's attacks.

Every once in awhile, a zombie will appear on the right side of the screen and will attempt a rolling attack. The player has to be aware of this, or they might get ambushed by Rock Turtle and the zombie.

Notes and Weakness
It is pretty much impossible to get out of the Rock Turtle mini-boss battle unscathed, but as it takes a good anmount of damage from Zenki's flying kick, the most effective way to fight it is actually staying as close as possible without entering the head's hitbox.

Crouching close to the monster will allow Zenki to easily avoid most of its disks and the rock throw move's rocks, although it could almost be considered cheesing the fight as it becomes very easily this way, while fighting the mini-boss normally essentially makes it the hardest enemy ingame.

While using the flying kick in quick succession might get Zenki hurt, there's also the possibility to time the button press in a way, so the Rock Turtle is hit over and over again, causing it to retract its head almost immediately over and over again, so it barely gets to shoot its disks at all.

It might be possible to beat the Rock Turtle without getting hurt, but this requires almost perfect timing.

Trivia
When fighting it the way it was meant to be, the Rock Turtle might be considered the second hardest enemy in a Kishin Douji Zenki game with the hardest enemy being Tenchi Meidou's Haira and the third hardest one being Vajura Fight's Marubasu.

Giant Oni Head
The Giant Oni Head is a huge, floating oni head with a constant smirk on his face. He is introduced in Stage 2-2 and acts the second mini-boss.

This mini-boss is rather unique as he spawns other enemies, an ability which can otherwise only be seen in the ghost enemy, which splits itself instead of spawining a different type of enemy.

The Giant Oni Head starts out on the right side of the screen, where he laughs at Zenki and then charges at Zenki. The Giant Oni Head has a medium speed when he does this and can be avoided by using the spin jump.

Zenki can also counter the Giant Oni Head by using his punch, his Crimson Attack, his Raigeka or the Vajura Beam exorcism. He can also use Rudra, but don't forget to keep track of Zenki's health and Rudra Protection Scrolls.

After attacking with his floating charge, the Giant Oni Head will stop on the side of the screen he was charging at and turn around. If he was interrupted by Zenki instead, he will take a moment and then either charge again or use his ghost spawining move.

There are two variants of the Giant Oni Head's floating collision move. One has him "taking a walk" across the place while floating in mid-air, which can be interrupted by Zenki's attacks. If the Giant Oni Head "walks" into Zenki, he will cause a medium anmount of collision damage.

The second variant of the floating collision move has the Giant Oni Head do the same as before, but now while spawning ghosts, which he throws along the way. The ghosts will die once they hit the ground, but they can only be taken down in one hit if Zenki uses Raigeka. Doing anything else will get Zenki hurt.

Then there's the regular ghost spawning move, which has the Giant Oni Head floating in place, laughing and spawning some ghosts, which fly all over the place. Again Zenki needs to use Raigeka to defend himself and avoid getting hurt.

The Giant Oni Head also has another move, which goes just like the spawning ghost one, but this time he summons undead, which will cling to Zenki and will try to eat him alive while the Giant Oni Head will charge at him over and over again. Zenki can't attack while being held down by the undead and needs to shake them off. Using Raigeka or the Vajura Lightning Fang will oneshot the undead.

More content and images of the Giant Oni Head will be added soon...

Fire breathing dragon
The fire breathing dragon is a huge dragon that breathes fire. It is introduced in Stage 3-2 and acts as the third mini-boss. Interestingly only its upper body is visible ingame and everything but its head is set as background objects. Not only can Zenki only harm the dragon's head, but also only the dragon's fire can hurt Zenki.

The fire breathing dragon starts out hanging from the ceiling and looking at Zenki, as Chiaki screams "It's huge!" and Zenki says "It's no match for me, no matter how big it is."

As Zenki moves along the area, the dragon follows his movements with its head until it decides to breathe fire at Zenki. Zenki can avoid being hurt by using the gale dragon move, which will blow the fire away and make it leave towards the top of the screen.

Once the dragon's health has been reduced to half, it will leave its place and appear from beneath, now sitting in the background. From there on it just continues breathing fire at Zenki until it's defeated.

The Gale Dragon can't harm the dragon, but Zenki's other attacks can, though it's not advised to use the Crimson Attack, as punching the fire breathing dragon with Zenki's burning fists will recover the dragon's health!

Ironically, the dragon won't return to the ceiling if he goes above half of its health again.

More content and images of the fire breathing dragon will be added soon...

Crab man
The Crab man is an armored man with crab-like pinchers. The game introduces him in Stage 4-2, but he actually originated in Volume 3 Chapter 4 of the Kishin Douji Zenki manga.

Unlike his manga appearance, he doesn't feast on the faces, he steals from girls, though. His ingame appearance has a quite different and way more cruel taste, but more on this later.

In Battle Raiden, he acts as the fourth mini-boss.

Intro
The Crab man starts out standing in the right corner of a small room. Demon God Zenki will start out in the left corner. Before the mini-boss battle actually begins, Zenki will say: "Another Hyouijuu... They just never learn."

Mini-Boss Battle
At first, the Crab man will just stand there, breathing and wiggling with his armor. After a short while, he will do one of three things. It is completely random which of these four things he will do at the beginning of the mini-boss battle, so it's a bit up to chance how the fight goes.

Backstep
The Crab man's first move has him making his own version of a backstep. He is able to make a backwards jump, which causes him to cross about 7/8th of the room. He will either use this before he charges at Zenki or in an attempt to avoid Zenki's attacks.

If the Crab man comes into contact with Zenki, he will cause a medium anmount of collision damage and a slight knockback. Be careful, as the low knockback might cause Zenki to get stuck in a corner and die from continuous collision damage if one's not careful.

Charging Tackle
The Crab man's second move has him stand in place and shiver. He will charge up and a red aura will appear and fuse with him, then he will charge forward across the room in an attempt to tackle Zenki, which deals a medium anmount of damage and a slight knockback. Zenki can avoid this by using the spin jump, but he needs to be precise with his timing, or he will be hit regardless.

The Crab man is immune to damage while he's using this move.

Drill-Arm Shot
The Crab man's third move has him taking a constipated pose. He starts grinning and holds one of his arms at groin level, making a drilling motion with it. Shortly afterwards, he will shoot his arm at Zenki in an attempt at hitting him in the family jewels!

The Crab man's drill-arm is pretty fast and deals a medium anmount of damage. Just like his other moves, it deals only a slight knockback and might hit Zenki twice. Luckily, this dirty trick can be avoided by jumping at the right time or doing the spin jump. But be careful! Just like a boomerang, the drill-arm comes back to the Crab man and might hit an unwary player.

One can only imaging how much it hurts if Zenki gets hit in the groin or ends up landing on the drill-arm balls first. But Zenki is a tough Demon God, grits his teeth and keeps on going, eventhough he actually does shiver if he receives a hit down there.

Claw Punch
The Crab man's fourth move is the Claw Punch, which he only uses if Zenki gets too close. If that happens, he will continuously keep taking swings at Zenki.

They don't deal too much damage if they hit Zenki, but will cause a medium knockback, preventing Zenki from taking a swing on his own.

This is the Crab man's main defense against his weakness, the Raigeka, but as Zenki is faster than him, it is possible to charge up Raigeka and hit the Crab man before Zenki has to retreat.

Outro
Once the Crab man is defeated, he will leave behind a Karuma Seed, which partially restores Zenki's health and Chiaki will say: "All right, keep on going!"

Weakness
The Crab man's main weakness is the Raigeka, which will take out around 1/7th of his health. His secondary weakness is Rudra, which will take out 1/5th of his health.

Raigeka can be used best by getting close to the Crab man when he's jumping around or standing in place. Zenki quickly charges up his Raigeka and then hits the Crab man with it. After this, Zenki is advised to make a backstep, as the Crab man will try to punch him.

If Zenki uses Rudra, he will deal a decent anmount of damage, but there are three things he needs to keep an eye on: His own health, his remaining Rudra Protection Scrolls and what the Crab man is currently doing.

If Zenki's health is too low or if he runs out of Rudra Protection Scrolls, he can't use Rudra. Keep in mind, that the Crab man is immune to damage if he's using his charging tackle.

Resistances
The Vajura Beam Exorcism deals only scratch damage to the Crab man and causes him to counter almost immediately by using his Claw Punch, Drill-Arm Shot or Charging Tackle.

If Zenki punches the Crab man or attempts to use the Crimson Attack, he will end up in an even worse situation, being punched by the Crab man multiple times before being able to backstep.

Trivia (Manga/Anime)
In his original appearance, the Crab man starts out as a thin and scary looking man, who is transformed into a face stealing monster due to him being a pervert and stalker, who is spying on girls that visit the beach.

He is first seen in Volume 3 Chapter 4 of the Kishin Douji Zenki manga and only appears in greyscale, but his design is later reused in Battle Raiden, where his backstory is dropped and he becomes a random mini-boss.

He also appears in Episode 30 of the Kishin Douji Zenki anime, where he is basically the same as in the manga. The only differences being, that the design of his Crab man form being slightly altered to be more crab-like and his colors being changed from blue to violet.

The Crab man is notable for being the only Battle Raiden mini-boss, to also make appearances outside of Battle Raiden.

Thunder Surfer
The Thunder Surfer is a skyblue man with huge shoulders and red eyes.

He first appears in Stage 5-1, where he shoots lightning bolts at Kishin Zenki when Zenki and Chiaki reach the upper route to the left at the very end of the stage. Zenki has to use his Vajura Beam Exorcism move to quickly charge to the left and outrun Thunder Surfer's lightning bolts.

Being hit by a lightning bolt will hurt Zenki and make him and the rock beneath his feet fall down, forcing the player to redo the stage section and a variable amount of the stage itself depending on where they land. As such, the player should try to stay calm if they are hit and press to the right to make Zenki fall to the right parts of the stage, so that they don't have to redo as much of the stage as if they fell down in a straight line.

Despite attacking Zenki and Chiaki in Stage 5-1, Thunder Surfer himself can't be fought until Stage 5-2, where he acts as Battle Raiden's final mini-boss.

Zenki will make a remark about Thunder Surfer's bravado not being enough for him to defeat Zenki and the battle will begin.

Thunder Surfer starts out in mid-air on the left side of the screen, standing atop his pentagram platform and crossing his arms. After awhile, he will start raising his arms and attack Zenki by performing the same thunder barrage move as he did in Stage 5-1.

This attack can be avoided by either performing the backstep or doing the spin-jump, which provides invincibility frames for Zenki.

If Zenki hits Thunder Surfer's platform twice, the platform will break and cause Thunder Surfer to gently float down to the ground, where he will try to attack Zenki by shooting thunder blades in a straight line instead.

Zenki needs to jump over the blades and attack Thunder Surfer while he's down. After awhile, Thunder Surfer will create a new platform and float in mid-air again.

Once Thunder Surfer's health has been depleted, his platform will break (only if he was finished off while floating) and he will dramatically fall over on his back while exploding.

Afterwards, Zenki and Chiaki enter Stage 5-3, which is the final area, that leads to the leader of the Jushi, Shijura.

Trivia

 * Zenki can stand on the Thunder Surfer's platform and give him a beating
 * The Thunder Surfer and his platform don't deal any collision damage
 * Despite these, the player still needs to look out for what the Thunder Surfer is doing, as he doesn't flinch when he is being attacked and will keep summoning lighting.
 * If Zenki is struck by lightning, he might randomly fall off the platform or stay on it. This depends on how close Zenki is to the middle of the platform when he stands on it.